At its meeting in Brussels on Thursday 8 September, the European Parliament’s agriculture committee discussed a draft report calling for European legislation on farmed rabbits.
The draft report by Stefan Eck (GUE/NGL, Germany) is relatively ambitious, arguing for protection to be provided for farmed rabbits. It says that over 340 million rabbits are slaughtered for their meat every year in the EU, with more than three quarters of all rabbit farming taking place in Italy, Spain and France. “The majority of rabbits in the EU are kept in barren environments, often in battery cages”, the draft states, and are “often housed in sheds containing 500 to 1,000 breeding females and 10,000 to 20,000 growing rabbits”. Intensive farming systems can cause rabbits to suffer from a wide range of welfare problems and diseases, the rapporteur says.
The EU has laid down minimum standards for the protection of pigs, calves, laying hens and chickens kept for meat production, and there is a Council directive on the protection of animals kept for farming purposes, but there is no specific EU legislation on minimum protection standards for rabbits.
The report calls on the Commission swiftly to bring forward proposals establishing minimum standards for the protection of farmed rabbits. It invites the Commission to consider pen systems as the guiding principle when proposing measures for housing requirements for breeding does and for rabbits reared for meat production.
The draft report: - encourages the use of pen systems for groups, which improves the welfare of farm rabbits and reduces the incidence of abnormal behaviour amongst them; - notes with concern that there is a high rate of disease and mortality among rabbits farmed in cages; - points out that rabbits reared and fattened for meat production in the EU are typically caged in groups, and are provided with a space per rabbit that is less than the area of two ordinary A4 sheets of paper; - advises that male rabbits over 12 weeks of age which are kept for breeding should always be housed separately in any system, owing to problems of aggression; - stresses that rabbits should be fully stunned before slaughter, ensuring that they undergo no suffering, pain or stress; - states that the widespread use of antibiotics in rabbit farming can lead to an increase in antimicrobial resistance; - emphasises that abolishing the use of battery cages would have a positive impact on the protection of public health and would reduce the use of antibiotics in rabbit farms.
Rapporteur Stefan Eck argues that all measures should be harmonised at EU level by introducing specific EU legislation for the minimum protection of farmed rabbits, including a clear system of production labelling allowing consumers in the EU to make an informed choice about the rabbit meat they buy. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)